Alaska.- The Pentagon shot down an unidentified “object” over Alaska on Friday by order of President Joe Biden, according to US officials.
John Kirby, the White House spokesman, confirmed the shootdown at a conference. A US official said it was not confirmed whether the object was a balloon, but that it was traveling at an altitude that made it a potential threat to civilian aircraft.
Biden ordered the unidentified object to be shot down “out of an abundance of caution,” Kirby noted.
A US official stated that there was “no affirmative indication of a military threat” to people on the ground from the object. Authorities said they could not confirm if there was any surveillance equipment on the object that was downed.
The action comes less than a week after a US warplane shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had traversed the United States.
